Pel and the Bombers

by Mark Hebden

  Their aims were undoubtedly anarchistic and protesting. They objected to the way the world was run and had pledged themselves to replace all the bourgeois things they hated such as finance, government and order. But what they were intending to replace them with they didn’t appear to know.

  By means of intensive questioning in the Rue Dubosc and at the addresses they already had, they managed to come up with descriptions of the last two missing men. By this time, they had a feeling that they had the complete gang save for this last two. It was the view of Judge Brisard that they should take no chances but should also bring in Kiczmyrczik and Anna Ripka for questioning. Judge Polverari was inclined to wait a little longer.

  ‘They’ll probably tell us where these other two are,’ Brisard argued.

  Pel shrugged. ‘I’m inclined to think Kiczmyrczik’s beyond this sort of thing now. He’s no longer young, and old revolutionaries usually manage no more than bitter memories.’

  ‘He could have organised it,’ Brisard insisted.

  Pel shrugged again. He didn’t like Brisard much and, to make things easy, Brisard didn’t like Pel. They’d been enemies as long as Pel could remember, in fact, but it didn’t disrupt the working of the department because Pel was tough enough, despite his size, to ride anything Brisard might do.

  ‘He could,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s my experience that young revolutionaries take the view that they’ve been let down as much by the old revolutionaries as they have by the capitalists. They feel they should have done more. In the end, this lot’ll be the same, falling back on bitterness and memories, and the next generation will regard them in the same way.’

  Polverari smiled. ‘It’s a hard life being a revolutionary,’ he observed.

  ‘It always was,’ Pel said. ‘It’s an occupational hazard.’

  Twelve

  Because of the greater urgency on the bigger case of the shot policemen, the reports of Leguyader and Doc Minet on the boy, Charles-Bernard Crébert, had inevitably been delayed.

  Nosjean had plodded steadily forward, however, though so far his work had been a process of elimination rather than the building up of a dossier against a suspect. By a tremendous effort on the part of Uniformed Branch in the villages, he felt they had managed to trace every single individual who’d been dancing or drinking in Vieilly on Bastille Night. Every one of them had come from Vieilly or the neighbouring farms and, by a process of checking and cross-checking, alibis had been established for every one of them. According to the writers of detective stories, Nosjean thought bitterly, there ought to have been at least six who shouldn’t have been able to verify where they’d been at the critical time but, in this case, because everybody knew everybody else, there wasn’t a single one.

  There had been a few surprises nevertheless. One or two men, it seemed, had disappeared into the shadows with women who weren’t their wives and one man had actually been in a neighbour’s bed. The fact that he had a black eye seemed to indicate that the neighbour had found out.

  Because Vieilly was close to St Blaize, where the detonators had been stolen, and to Porsigny-le-Petit, where a woman had been wounded, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that the boy’s death might have been because he had witnessed something; and Nosjean, never one to give up easily, climbed into the little red Renault he drove to have another go at his witnesses there.

  ‘Didn’t you see anyone?’ he asked Madame Colbrun.

  She shook her head. ‘Only this car that came past.’

  ‘Notice the number – or any part of it?’

  ‘It was going too fast. I noticed one of the passengers, though. He was looking back the way he had come.’

  ‘Which is something passengers don’t normally do,’ Nosjean admitted. ‘Perhaps he was looking back to see if they were being followed. What did he look like?’

  ‘It was dark.’

  ‘Anything we could use to identify him? What was he wearing, for instance?’

  ‘Just clothes. That’s all. I wasn’t really looking. I was sitting in the grass beginning to think I was dying.’

  Lamorieux wasn’t much more helpful. ‘When they started shooting,’ he said, ‘I got down. Quick. I’m supposed to be a night watchman, not a cop.’

  ‘Did you see what they looked like? What were they dressed in, for instance?’

  The night watchman’s description was the same as Madame Colbrun’s. ‘Just clothes,’ he said. ‘There were three of them. I noticed that. And they were all on the small side. That’s why I thought they were kids. One had a thin face but it was too dark to see any more. One had red hair. I caught a glimpse of it in the glow of the car lights.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘I didn’t really see him.’

  Well – Nosjean was philosophical – they were making headway. One of the men seen at the quarry had red hair and the other had a thin face. They sounded as if they were the ones Hogue had mentioned and Raffet had seen in his bar, the man called Tom and the one with a face like a ferret.

  Still, that was Pel’s case, and you could hardly say the descriptions put them in hot pursuit of the killer of Charles-Bernard Crébert. In addition, there were those diazepam capsules found in the boy’s pocket which needed explanation, especially as Doc Minet had pointed out that they couldn’t be obtained except on prescription from a doctor.

  On the way back to town, Nosjean decided to pay a call on Robert Delacolonge, Charles-Bernard’s uncle. If Doctor Nisard had prescribed such pills for Charles-Bernard’s mother, perhaps Delacolonge might know if he had stolen them from her. Unfortunately, Delacolonge was at work, and he had to be content with his wife.

  Delphine Delacolonge was a thin-faced girl with a sly sideways manner of looking at him and pretensions to prettiness which, Nosjean suspected, would fade quickly as she grew older.

  ‘My husband’s at work,’ she said. ‘He can’t afford to take time off.’

  There were books and toys about the floor of the apartment and the dubious smell of baby clothes. Madame Delacolonge didn’t seem much more efficient than her husband.

  ‘He doesn’t like working where he does,’ she said. ‘But he’s too easy-going. But that’s his life story, isn’t it?’

  There was a hint of contempt in her voice and Nosjean leaned forward. ‘Is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, isn’t it? His parents had money and his sister had a good education, but when it was his turn his father went bust and there was nothing left. He wasn’t as clever as his sister either. She got into university. He didn’t. It’s always the same, isn’t it? The one who needs it most has to go without.’

  Nosjean said nothing and she went on. ‘Then she married this type, Crébert, who’s rolling in money, so she didn’t even need her qualifications.’ Madame Delacolonge sounded bitter now. ‘She’s a chemist by profession, you know. Worked in a pharmacy. But after her marriage she never did a stroke at it. It might have been better for her if she had. She wouldn’t have had time to think so much about herself.’

  ‘Does she think about herself?’

  ‘She never does anything else, does she? She’s a – what do you call them? – a manic depressive? That’s what Robert says. Everything’s against her. Everybody’s ganging up against her – even her husband. She said he was always turning young Charles-Bernard against her.’

  ‘Did you think he did?’

  Madame Delacolonge pulled a face. ‘She spoiled him. She’d been in St Saviour’s herself, did you know? That’s how Robert got the job, I think. He visited her a lot and they got to know him.’

  ‘Your husband said he was a poet.’

  Madame Delacolonge’s mouth twisted. ‘He’d like to be. He wrote a lot of poems. Free verse. Nothing rhymed.’

  ‘Were they good?’

  She gave him a sharp meaningful smile. ‘I didn’t understand them. It was like his painting and his sculpture. They never came to anything either.’

  ‘What is he good at?’

  ‘She gave him
another of her sharp sly smiles. ‘Nothing much. He always aimed too high. He wanted to show Crébert he could be noticed in the world, too. He didn’t manage it.’

  Nosjean looked about the apartment. A guitar hung on the wall and there was a bullfight poster from Spain. The records standing near the record player were the records of Piaf, Aznavour and Joan Baez. Alongside it stood a clarinet.

  ‘Does he play that?’

  ‘Not much. He once thought he might get a job in a group but he never did. It got him down at times.’

  Nosjean moved about the room, his eyes alert. At the side of the fireplace was a newspaper cutting of two men fencing. One of them Nosjean recognised at once as Major Martinelle.

  ‘You know him?’ he asked.

  Delphine Delacolonge smiled. ‘He runs the gymnasium,’ she said. ‘I once ran Charles-Bernard there in the car. His bicycle was punctured so I took him. He’s a fine-looking man, the major.’

  It struck Nosjean that she was more than normally enthusiastic. He picked up a picture of Delacolonge with his wife. Delacolonge was wearing jeans and a heavy sweater with thick-soled plimsolls.

  ‘Does he usually dress like that?’

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘He was wearing a suit the day I saw him outside his sister’s house.’

  She smiled. ‘He likes to impress his sister. He doesn’t like them to think we haven’t much money. He puts on a show.’

  Nosjean paused, ready with the 64,000 dollar question. ‘Has your husband ever expressed any interest in any dissident society?’

  ‘Dissident society?’ Madame Delacolonge looked blank.

  ‘Is he a Communist?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought he might be.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Fascist?’

  ‘He just believes in law and order.’

  ‘Ever talked about Free Burgundy? Or Free Corsica? Or Free Brittany?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Ever mentioned a man called Kiczmyrczik? Or Kino?’

  ‘I’ve never heard him.’

  ‘What did he feel about the shootings in the city the other day?’

  ‘He was shocked.’

  Nosjean, who had still vaguely hoped to connect young Crébert’s murder with the shootings, was disappointed. Delacolonge had all the makings of a dissident, all the makings of someone who would turn to the Left because if there was one thing he didn’t possess it was the makings of a capitalist. Yet he was right of centre, but not so far right as to believe the answer was fascism.

  ‘Did he suffer from depression?’ he asked as he left.

  ‘Frustration would be a better word.’

  ‘Did he take anti-depressant pills?’

  ‘What sort of anti-depressant pills?’

  ‘Diazepam.’

  ‘I’ve never seen them.’

  ‘Has he ever consulted a doctor about it?’

  No, he hadn’t consulted a doctor. When he was feeling low, Delacolonge went for a walk in the fresh air and always seemed to come back feeling better. But, if Nosjean wanted to check, his doctor’s name was De Barante and he lived only just down the street.

  Nosjean did want to check and what Madame Delacolonge said was correct. Delacolonge had never been to Doctor de Barante for depression, and the doctor had never prescribed pills for him beyond the usual things for coughs and colds, because Delacolonge was a normally healthy man. He was rather a sad sort of individual, the doctor thought, but that was because he wasn’t very clever and he seemed to ride the problem all right. He had certainly never prescribed pills.

  There was still the problem of where the diazepam capsules in the boy’s pocket had come from and on his way back into the city, Nosjean stopped at the Créberts’ house. Fortunately, Madame Crébert was out and Nosjean found himself talking to her husband.

  ‘Did you know your son was taking anti-depressants?’ he asked.

  Crébert looked angry. ‘Was he?’

  ‘Diazepam capsules were found in his pockets.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean he was taking them.’

  Nosjean tried a new angle. ‘Could you describe your son to me?’ he asked. ‘As honestly as you can. It might help.’

  Crébert sighed. ‘I don’t know why he had these capsules in his pocket,’ he said. ‘He didn’t get depressed. Just furious. He liked to put on an act – pretend to be ill, or fed up, that sort of thing – but it was usually to get his own way, that’s all. He was inclined to be selfish. He’d been spoiled by his mother. He wasn’t strong as a baby and she was over-protective. In fact, though, he grew up perfectly healthy and I gather he had the makings of a good gymnast, but she still did everything for him so that when he couldn’t have his own way he sulked and did silly things.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Such as breaking my electric razor. Deliberately.’

  ‘Had anyone ever prescribed diazepam for him? They’re given to people who’re depressed.’

  ‘I know what they are,’ Crébert said. ‘My wife takes them. You’ve seen her. She’s had more than one nervous breakdown. God knows why. There’s nothing she lacks. I try to talk to her. I’ve had her to a psychiatrist. But it makes no difference. It never will, of course. The cure for that sort of ailment comes from inside, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Could the boy have stolen the capsules? From the medicine chest?’

  Crébert sighed again. ‘He could. I don’t know. I insist on them being kept locked up, but my wife’s careless – especially when she thinks things are against her.’

  ‘Could she have given them?’

  Crébert opened his mouth to speak and Nosjean got the impression he was about to say ‘She’s silly enough’ but then he changed his mind.

  ‘She might have done,’ he admitted. ‘Sometimes when she’s down, she feels everybody else should share her unhappiness.’

  Nosjean paused. ‘I’m told you have a farmer friend at Vieilly, near where the boy was found, and that you were in the habit of shooting there.’

  ‘That’s right. He was at school with me. He’s got a lot of land and he’s a good farmer. I shoot pigeons with him occasionally.’

  ‘Were you shooting pigeons on the night of the 14th?’

  ‘What’s the point of shooting pigeons on the night of anything? You need daylight.’

  Nosjean agreed but it was a question he had to ask. ‘What sort of gun do you use?’

  ‘I have a rifle. A .303. But normally I use a shotgun. The game’s pretty small round here and a rifle would be useless. Even if you hit anything, you’d ruin it with a .303.’

  ‘Why do you have the .303 then?’

  ‘I have a cousin who lives in Alsace. There are wild boar on his land. Occasionally, we kill one. They’re no good for eating but they do a lot of damage.’

  Meeting De Troquereau for a drink, Nosjean set out what he’d discovered.

  ‘The boy could have got the diazepam from his mother, either by stealing them or because she gave them to him. She’s been in St Saviour’s.’

  ‘Could any of the patients at that place have been out illegally the night the boy was killed?’ De Troq’ asked.

  ‘They say prisoners can’t get out of prison,’ Nosjean pointed out. ‘But some do. Found out any more about Martinelle?’

  ‘He can give me no real proof of where he was that night. He says he was at the library and then at various bars. But nobody seems to have noticed him.’

  ‘He might have been at Vieilly. Charles-Bernard was his star pupil. It wouldn’t have been difficult to persuade him to go there.’

  ‘It’s my view,’ De Troq’ said, ‘that he was with a woman.’

  Nosjean remembered the picture of Martinelle in the Delacolonges’ apartment. He finished his beer and jerked his head. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ve got work to do.’

  The Delacolonges’ living room looked out on to a tree-lined square that was also overlooked by about forty-eight other living rooms, all belonging to the sam
e block of flats and all exactly the same in size and shape. It was obvious at once that it would be very difficult to conduct anything at all unseemly without being seen.

  ‘Visitors?’ the woman in the flat directly opposite asked. ‘What sort of visitors?’

  ‘The sort,’ Nosjean said, ‘who visit when the husband’s at work.’

  She looked at Nosjean. ‘Is it like that then?’

  ‘It might be.’

  ‘I always thought it was.’ Delacolonge, it seemed, was no better as a husband than he was at anything else. ‘I once saw a man go in.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘Not very big. Walked on his toes a lot. Athletic.’

  De Troq’s questions in the flanking wing of the block brought an even clearer answer. ‘Military man. Soldier. My husband calls him “the little corporal.” He looks a bit like Napoleon.’

  Several other neighbours had also spotted a short military figure – usually after dusk and usually when they knew Delacolonge was on duty – but nobody had seen him on Bastille Night.

  On the way back into the city, they stopped at Martinelle’s gymnasium. Martinelle was sitting in the little room he used for an office, eating a sandwich and drinking a bottle of beer.

  ‘Sorry I haven’t any more,’ he said. ‘Ration myself. Keep fit.’

  Nosjean came to the point at once. ‘The night the Crébert boy died,’ he said. ‘Where were you?’

  Martinelle looked up. ‘I’ve told your friend here where I was.’

  ‘Well, now I’m asking.’

  ‘Surely you don’t suspect me?’

  ‘I don’t suspect anyone,’ Nosjean said. ‘But everybody who hasn’t an alibi’s a suspect. You haven’t an alibi. Were you with a woman?’